


old wounds brand new (i want to)

by susiecarter



Category: Gridlocked (2015)
Genre: Caretaking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Protectiveness, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24180724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: There's something about the thought of Brody and Some Guy that curdles itself up in David's gut, sour.He tries not to dwell on it. He tries not to think about it at all.But he starts to have a lot more trouble not looking at those tabloid headlines, not checking for more pictures of Brody.And then he starts not liking that Brody's dating Some Guy for a totally different reason.
Relationships: David Hendrix/Brody Walker
Comments: 22
Kudos: 57
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	old wounds brand new (i want to)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theae/gifts).



> I can only hope this is half of what you were looking for from those "rape recovery" and "recovery from intimate partner abuse" freeforms, theae—thank you so much for your excellent prompts and thoughts on David and Brody and the possibilities for this scenario, and happy Hurt/ComfortEx!
> 
> Title borrowed from "Old Wounds" by Pvris. This doesn't go into what I would consider particularly explicit detail about either the (past) abuse or the (past) rape; there are no flashbacks, and neither one takes place onscreen, it's all physical and emotional aftermath—but discussion, speculation, and inexplicit remembrances are shared on-page.

It takes a while for David to find out that Brody's got a boyfriend.

Not because it's some kind of secret. Just because he isn't fucking paying attention. There's bullshit about Brody in the tabloids on a semi-regular basis, shouting all-caps headlines and huge glossy photos on the covers; David ignores them deliberately, eyes skipping over them with a weird petty satisfaction. Like it's some kind of meaningful take-that to all the fucking paps who got him landed with Brody in the first place, to give their crap exactly the amount of attention it deserves.

But every now and then, he catches a word or two before he realizes what he's looking at and turns away. Every now and then, one of those headlines, one of those photos, can't help but jam its contents into his eyeballs before he has a chance to prevent it.

And one day, it's—it's Brody and some guy, and David jerks his eyes away automatically and then they jerk themselves back almost as fast, because what?

It's got to be made up. That's what he thinks at first. That's what tabloids do: make shit up, the more salacious the better. And an action-movie star on a sudden upswing like Brody makes an extra attractive target, surely.

But he looks at the cover a little longer, and—well.

Unless somebody straight-up Photoshopped the whole thing, Brody is definitely holding some guy's hand.

David swallows.

He'd thought Brody had just had an average level of "Hollywood is a lie and so am I" going on, during that conversation they'd had in David's apartment. When he'd looked David in the face, all sharp ragged edges and uncertain eyes, saying, _Being told what to do, what to wear, who to date—I don't even know who I am anymore—_

Apparently he'd meant a little more by that than David had realized at the time.

The line's moved. David drags his eyes away from the tabloid and steps up to the register, and pays for his shit, and doesn't look back.

It's not a big deal. If anything, he ought to be proud of the kid for getting himself sorted the fuck out—for having the stones to hold that guy's hand, and fuck whoever had been telling him not to. He _is_ proud of the kid, not that he's going to say so to anybody out loud.

But there's something about the thought of Brody and Some Guy that curdles itself up in David's gut, sour.

He tries not to dwell on it. He tries not to think about it at all.

But he starts to have a lot more trouble not looking at those tabloid headlines, not checking for more pictures of Brody.

And then he starts not liking that Brody's dating Some Guy for a totally different reason.

It takes even longer to get to the point where it bothers him in a way he can't ignore.

David's a world champion at ignoring shit. And Brody's on the other side of the country; Brody's not his responsibility anymore. Brody's not supposed to be his responsibility anymore, and David's been doing his level best to slowly smother the part of him that can't stop shrieking otherwise. Besides, if it were really that bad, if this isn't all just him being paranoid—the kid would say something. Wouldn't he?

But David's also spent like half his life looking at people, watching them, trying to figure out what their deal is before they can catch him by surprise and shoot him in the face. He pays attention to the small stuff. Especially when he's got a reason to give a shit.

At first, it's just an idle thought. David looks at the latest batch of photos, walking down the street past a stand full of fluttering full-color pages, and—Brody looks tired. A little pinched around the face, the eyes.

Weird, David can't help thinking. The whole press tour for _Gridlocked_ , he'd been thrilled, energetic, always answering every interview question with a smile.

But—maybe it was the attention he'd gotten a charge out of. It's Brody, after all. He must be working, now; filming something new. Probably just tough hours or something, heavy shooting schedule. That must be all it is.

Except it happens again, and again, and again.

Brody's still grinning in the photos, some of the time. But more and more often, as a month turns into two, three, he's—he looks tense, skittish, mouth tight. David had been happy for a while there, during the quiet hours in the dark when he'd allowed himself to think about it, because the paps weren't catching Brody smashed or fucked up, not since he'd come and done his time with David. But it starts up again, now: pictures filled with blurred, smearing lights in the background, pitch-black everywhere else, Brody's eyes half-open, and Some fucking Guy with his arm around Brody's shoulders.

Brody starts looking more and more like that asshole kid who'd punched a pap in the head, and less and less like the guy who stepped between David and a bullet. And the worst part is—if David's right, if Brody _feels_ more like that asshole kid again, he can't be happy about it. He wasn't happy before, like that.

Four months into Brody dating Some Guy, David catches himself actually standing at a magazine rack with a tabloid having somehow leapt directly into his outstretched hands, thinking to himself that Brody looks thin.

 _Thin_.

Jesus, David is turning into his own _mother_.

It's probably the stress. It's probably for a role, losing weight, tightening up. It's none of David's fucking business. It's—

It's Some Guy's fucking business, now, and that knowledge really shouldn't burn David up inside the way it does.

Fuck, he is so fucked.

They're still talking on the phone, those four months.

David doesn't know whether to treat it as evidence, add it to the casefile his brain's apparently started keeping on Brody, that Brody barely talks to him about Some Guy at all.

Brody sounds fine, mostly. David tries to use that to keep himself at bay, and it sort of works, for a while.

It's just—

It's just there's some shit David can't quite convince himself to let go of.

David brings up Some Guy once, when he can't stand not to anymore. That's back in the early days, maybe a month in. And Brody breathes into the phone for a second, and laughs a little, and says, "Um, yeah. Surprise? I probably should've warned you—somebody might come around asking questions—"

"'Now that Brody Walker is gay'," David intones, in his best Idiot Reporter voice, "'we need an itemized list of every time he ever touched a man, in case that touch was also gay'."

Brody snorts, uncontrolled, honest, amused. "Yeah," he agrees. "Something like that."

"Nothing yet," David tells him. "But if anybody tries it, I'll be the one who ends up court-ordered to be your ridealong, this time."

He's expecting a joke. He's expecting Brody to grab onto that and drive it into the ground, in point of fact; he grimaces a little even before Brody's said anything, because that's the kind of opening David would usually try not to give him. Brody's been on this thing about David flying out to visit, or Brody himself coming back to New York, every single chance he gets.

But instead, Brody's quiet, for a too-long moment that suddenly has every inch of David's nerves on alert, the skin prickling at the nape of David's neck.

"Hah," Brody says at last— _says_ it, not even a real laugh. "Yeah. Well." He clears his throat. "Um, I should—I better—"

"Sure, yeah," David hears himself say, and is left staring down at his silent phone after Brody's hung up.

He wants to think it's a one-off. An outlier.

But instead, it turns out to be the new normal. Brody doesn't talk about traveling anywhere anymore, about coming to see David, and he doesn't try to argue David into coming to see him, either. He's—he doesn't even say David's name on the phone, half the time.

He starts to sound hurried, hushed. He starts to sound like he's trying not to be overheard. David used to ignore his phone for a couple days and end up with forty voicemails; but now sometimes he calls Brody and Brody doesn't even answer.

David doesn't know how to ask about it. He doesn't know whether he should try.

It gets to the point, at around that four-month mark, where they're in the middle of a conversation about—about hardly fucking anything, about _sports_ or something, and David feels like a fucking parody of himself: Brody's practically whispering, taut and anxious, and David's going on and on like he hasn't noticed a thing, like it's totally normal, because he doesn't know what the fuck else to do. It's like whatever's wrong with Brody is wrong with him, too, like there's something he needs to be scared of; like if he breathes wrong, breaks a rule, says a word about it, for all he fucking knows Brody's never going to pick up the phone again.

And then, suddenly, right in the middle of a sentence, Brody interrupts him. Totally normal volume, easy conversational tone: "Yeah, I don't know, man, I might not be able to make it. But thanks for the invite!"

David stops short, heart clenched up cold and tight in his chest. "Brody," he says.

"No, dude, no worries," Brody adds, bright. "It's cool, it's cool."

"Brody, if you're in trouble—" David stops, squeezes his eyes shut, because jesus, what the fuck is he going to do about it? Fly three thousand miles and show up eight hours too late to save Brody's ass? "I got your back, kid," he says at last, hoarse, frustrated, feeling fucking useless. "You know that, right?"

Brody's quiet, for a handful of seconds that feels like a fucking year. David hears a quick, gulped breath, and then Brody says, "Yeah?" and he's still forcing that shiny bright tone, but suddenly it doesn't matter: David can tell it's real, a question, and it's like a bullet to the guts that it's one Brody feels like he has to ask.

" _Yeah_ ," David says, low. "Yeah. Okay? Anything. Anything you need."

It isn't enough. It doesn't feel like enough. Jesus, David isn't—David isn't anybody's idea of comforting; Brody must have a dozen other people he'd be better off calling for help with whatever it is he's dealing with. David should just keep his fucking mouth shut.

But Brody doesn't tell him that. Brody just breathes into the phone again, and then clears his throat and says, "Well, thanks, man. I'll keep it in mind, for sure." And then, hasty, too-loud, "See you around!" and David knows even before he's moved his phone away from his ear and looked down at it that Brody's already hung up.

* * *

He's expecting it to be a week or so before he hears from Brody again. That's about what they're down to, these days. He expects to be stuck waiting, trying to get a grip, hoping he didn't fuck that up so bad Brody never talks to him again.

He isn't expecting his phone to ring the next afternoon, right in the middle of his second Saturday-and-nothing-to-do-but-the-crossword beer. And he definitely isn't expecting it to be Brody.

"Hey, man."

"Hey," David offers, cautious. Brody's not talking quietly this time; and David hadn't quite put it together before, but there's something different in the quality of the sound around him, too. David had gotten used to everything being muffled, hushed, like Brody had shut himself up in a bathroom to talk—but now he can hear the rush of traffic beyond Brody's voice, the chatter of people. Brody's in public. Public is safe. David's shoulders drop an inch or two.

"So, uh, here's the thing," Brody says. "You meant it, yesterday. Right?"

"Yeah," David says, instant, helpless. "Yeah, kid. Of course I did."

"Great," Brody says. "Fantastic. Then, um, maybe you could let me in?"

David sits there, frozen, for a mindless second. And then all at once he's up, out of his chair, pulse pounding in his throat, practically pressing his face to his window—and jesus, fuck, it's true. That's Brody, right down there, standing on the sidewalk with his hoodie pulled up, enormous terrible sunglasses covering half his face.

"I'll think about it," David makes himself say, blandly, evenly, and watches the Brody down there in the street tip his head back, listens to the shaky laugh as it filters through the phone, and then he gets a fucking grip and goes down to meet Brody at the door.

Brody's breathless, too-bright, a little manic, on the way up the stairs to David's apartment. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet waiting for David to get the door open, and talking a mile a minute, so fast David can hardly keep up.

Jesus, it's ridiculously fucking good to see him. To have him right here, in person, in arm's reach. David hadn't—hadn't let himself think about it, had been trying not to get fucked up over it; but it had stretched him pretty fucking thin anyway, feeling like Brody was in danger, knowing he was too far away to do anything. Three thousand miles, three feet: any distance is too much, when Brody's standing there taking a bullet to the chest and David can't do a goddamn thing about it.

But he's here now, and something deep down in David has finally settled, eased out where it had been cramped up taut.

And then David actually starts hearing what Brody's saying.

"—sorry, man, I know it's bullshit to just show up like this. I didn't even tell you I was coming. I should have called first or something, not just when I was already right outside. I'm—if you're busy with whatever, or—"

"Shut up," David says quietly.

He's got the door open, and Brody's already stepped inside, on autopilot; David follows him, swings the door shut, and then turns around and grabs him by the shoulders, tugs him in for the least back-breaking man-hug David's got in his arsenal.

Which, of course, is probably the stupidest thing he could possibly have done. He freezes right there, arm around Brody. Because, jesus, he wants to be wrong about why Brody's here; he wants the whole thing to have been in his head, just David Hendrix jumping the gun, assuming the worst. Too much time working the streets and seeing the shit people will do to each other, getting himself turned around, reading too much into nothing. But if Brody really is—if Some Guy really has been— _hurting_ him, then the last thing he needs is David muscling him around—

Brody stands there for a tense second, unmoving, and David is making serious plans to throw himself out the fucking window.

And then Brody lets out a weird, harsh little breath against the ball of David's shoulder, and relaxes tentatively into it. Brings an arm up, and hugs back.

He does it too hard, too long. Like thirty seconds longer than man-hugs are allowed to last, in David's experience. But the kid never did meet a rule he wasn't looking to break at the first opportunity; and David sure as shit isn't going to be the one to let go first.

Fuck, David thinks helplessly. Brody _is_ thin.

"Hey," he makes himself say, and he didn't mean it as a cue but Brody seems to take it as one, clearing his throat and jerking free, turning away.

"Gee," Brody says, too light. "Love what you've done with the place."

David casts an eye around with a snort. He hasn't touched a thing since the last time Brody was in here. Probably seems pretty bare bones compared to whatever Hollywood condo Brody's used to, but—

But if Brody actually gave a shit about that, he wouldn't be here.

David closes his eyes, and clears his throat, too, and strives to keep his tone—level, at least, even if he can't match Brody for sheer forced conversational ease. He's not the fucking actor here. "Come on, sit your ass down," he says. "Beer?"

And shit, that's probably the wrong thing to do, too—like he's encouraging Brody to drink to cope, like he doesn't have a pretty good guess that Brody already tried getting hammered to deal with Some Guy a few times too many. Jesus. David's never felt more like a bull in a china shop; usually it's _useful_ , the way he never stops to second-guess himself until after he's already moved, the way he trusts his body's own reflexive response. It's great, real handy, when the problem he's facing is a hail of bullets. Little less so when he's got to actually try to use his fucking brain.

But Brody glances over his shoulder at David and says, "Sure," and he sounds so fucking relieved to be asked, so fucking relieved that David's treating this like any old Saturday afternoon, that David can't bring himself to take it back.

One beer, David tells himself. It's fine. It's not a big thing, so don't make it into one. Get a goddamn grip.

So they sit there on David's shitty couch and drink their beers.

David manages to ease himself off the knife-edge after a minute; because Brody's just taking absent sips, like he wants something to do with his hands, his face, more than he's after beer in particular. David just—just worked himself up, hypervigilant, and now that he's aware of it, paying attention to how fucking wired he is, he knows what to do about it.

He breathes, and he sips his own beer, and he talks himself silently down.

Brody seems content to sit quietly for a little while. He shifts, once, and his knee ends up pressed to David's; he doesn't move it away again.

He hasn't said a word about a hotel. David thinks about asking, except he doesn't want to bring it up if Brody isn't going to—doesn't want to make Brody think David's angling to get him to stay someplace else. Truth is, he'd rather Brody stayed right here: right here, safe, where David can keep an eye on him properly, with Some Guy finally the one who's stuck a couple thousand miles away. Tables turned, asshole.

And—Brody probably wants to stay right here too, actually, David realizes slowly. The hoodie, the sunglasses Brody's now tipped up to rest on the top of his head, aren't just Brody's awful sense of style. He was trying not to get noticed, down there on the street outside David's building. He was trying not to get recognized.

Hotel leaves a trail, leaves something for people to find. Reporters, paps—Some Guy, even. It makes David's gut go cold, that it might have gotten that fucking serious, that Brody might be trying that hard to make sure his own fucking boyfriend can't figure out where he is. Jesus.

David hadn't realized until right then, facing down the sudden icy awareness of exactly how much he doesn't know about what's going on with Brody, exactly how bad it might be, that he'd been hoping for anything in particular. That he'd desperately wanted to believe Some Guy had gotten physical with Brody for the very first time just yesterday; that Brody had called the play and come straight to David. Because if that's not true, then Brody's been surviving this shit for weeks, _months_ , without saying a goddamn word—without understanding that he could have, that David would've done anything to help him.

And no sooner has the thought formed, bile rising up unstoppably at the back of David's throat, than Brody reaches out to set his beer down on the coffee table—and the tug of his sleeve riding up bares his wrist.

"Oh, fuck," David says.

Brody glances at him, looking nothing but puzzled. And then, in an excruciatingly visible flicker, his face goes carefully blank.

He plays it cool, because of course he does. He must know trying to cover up the smattering of blue-green bruising would only make it more obvious that something fucked up happened to put it there. You smack your wrist on the edge of a drawer, you don't bother hiding it; you don't panic and yank your sleeve down over it and start talking loudly about how it's nothing.

"Hm?" he says, like he might not have figured out what David's reacting to. "Oh, yeah, that's—" He stops. "I don't know if I told you, we started filming already for my next—" He stops again, swallowing.

And then, slowly, his face changes. He screws his eyes shut, and rubs his mouth.

"Jesus," he says quietly. "What the hell am I doing? You know it wasn't a fucking accident on set." He stops, and bites his lip, and looks at David, and his eyes are somewhere between wary and pleading. "You've got to know. You guessed. I know you guessed, you—"

He's speeding up, panicky, like he thinks David's about to say, _What the fuck are you talking about?_ Like he's been lying for so long he's half-afraid that it's true, that nothing's wrong with whatever that asshole has been doing to him, that it's not bad enough for anybody to give a shit.

"Yeah," David says instead, before Brody can get any further. "Yeah, I guessed. I know. You're right. I know."

Brody's staring at him, pale, silent. For a second, his eyes look wet, and David tries not to fucking bolt at the idea that he's about to cry; David's _SWAT_ , for fuck's sake, how can he feel so thoroughly goddamn unprepared for this?

But then Brody blinks, once, twice, and swallows, and blurts, "I don't want to talk about it."

David can't help but raise his eyebrows. "And you think I do? Are you kidding me?"

He winces a little once the words get out, because Jesus Christ. But—hell, Brody's _met_ him. It's not like it's going to be a surprise.

And sure enough, Brody looks at him and laughs. He sounds like he's shocked to hear himself do it, like he didn't mean to. He shakes his head after, lets his eyes fall shut, and the slant of his mouth is disbelieving, a little wild, but at least it's there. At least Some Guy hasn't fucked him up so bad he can't even laugh at David when David's being an idiot.

"I knew there was a reason I came here," Brody says, and it's shaky but it's a joke; he looks almost as relieved to have managed to make it as David is to hear it.

"You're welcome," David says, and then braces himself and sets his own beer down. "I mean it, okay? You don't have to tell me shit. But—you've got to let me look at it."

"At my wrist? Are you serious? Come on, man, it's not like he broke it—"

David tilts his head a little, meets Brody's eyes, and Brody's mouth snaps shut.

"You really going to try and tell me that's all of it?" David says softly.

And Brody looks at him and then away, and doesn't answer.

Which basically is an answer, David figures.

"Come on," David tells him. "Bathroom."

* * *

Brody seems to have maybe been riding some adrenaline off the plane coming to David's place—or else, now that the ice is broken, now that they've actually kind of halfway said something about the elephant in the room, he's just not putting as much effort into the "everything's totally fine" routine.

Either way, he moves ahead of David to the bathroom, and David notices for the first time that he's holding himself strangely. Stiffly, kind of. Not a lot, just a little; but now that bruises have entered the picture, David's not exactly assuming the best.

Jesus. Just how badly is he hurt? Just how badly has he _been_ hurt, this entire fucking time? And not even while he's been right the fuck in front of David, while they were sitting there together drinking their fucking beers—yesterday, on the phone; half a dozen fucking times; in every single one of those stupid tabloid photos, while David was busy trying not to look at them and telling himself Brody was fine—

"Dude," Brody says. "I don't take my shirt off for people with that look on their face."

David blinks, and looks up. He's—scowling, he realizes belatedly, brow heavy, jaw working. He tries to stop.

Judging by the way Brody's eyebrow rises, he doesn't entirely succeed.

"Look," Brody says, after an awkward beat. "I get it. It's weird that I'm—that I'm suddenly dumping this shit on you, after—"

"What?" David says. "Are you fucking—I'm not mad at _you_ , kid. Jesus."

He realizes a second too late that that makes it a little too easy to figure out who he is mad at, and by then Brody's already gone still, looking at him with startled, speculative eyes.

"You're mad at him?" Brody pauses. "No, you were—you were mad at him already," he amends slowly, like he's trying to get his head around the idea, like somehow it's even a fucking question. "You were mad at him already, but you weren't making that face. You're mad at—you? Man, what for?" He laughs a little, bites his lip after, like he knows it isn't really funny. " _You_ didn't do this to me," he adds in a rush, and David recognizes the expression on his face, half daring and half sick, at acknowledging even part of it out loud for the second time in like five minutes.

"As good as," David bites out.

Because he might suck at this part, this whole—being careful, being considerate. Being gentle; being kind. That's not anything David ever trained for, not anything he was ever built for, and he's fucked it up at least three different ways already.

But there's another part he shouldn't have sucked at. David's a brick shithouse, a cold-blooded killer, the wrath of God. _That's_ what he's good at. Which means the least he could have fucking done was _stop_ this. He shouldn't have been sitting here, dicking around with his thumb up his ass, making Brody come to him—making the guy who was in the deepest trouble, the most danger, get _himself_ out of it. He should have gotten on a goddamn plane the minute he thought there was something wrong with Brody, and he should have gone and shot Some Guy in the head.

That was the part that was his job, if anything was. And he hadn't lifted a goddamn finger to get it done.

Brody's staring at him.

"What," Brody says, "because you didn't do anything? Are you serious? Dude, I was—I was _hiding_ it from you. I didn't _want_ you to notice, I wasn't telling you shit. And you think you not figuring it out faster and coming to save my ass is _your_ fault?"

David swallows. "You might be an actor," he says, low, "but you're not that good a liar." He shakes his head. "I knew something was wrong. I _knew_. And I—"

He stops, and shuts his mouth. What the hell can he even say? What kind of excuse, what kind of apology, can he possibly give?

He'd hesitated. He'd told himself that he wasn't sure, that he didn't know anything for certain. He hadn't done shit, and he'd left Brody to make it through alone, and he's going to have to figure out how to fucking live with that.

And the last thing he should be doing right now is making any of that Brody's problem.

"David," Brody's saying, unsteady, bright-eyed.

"Never mind," David mutters, and doesn't look him in the face. "Shirt off. Come on."

Brody looks like shit.

He's bruised in a dozen different places, everything from the barest greenish shadows about to fade away along his collarbone to a huge scary-ass blue-black span over his ribs that makes David grimace in sympathy. He's got a scattering of half-healed cuts across the top of his shoulder, the side of his throat, the hinge of his jaw—the pattern doesn't make any sense to David, and then does, once he realizes it would match up to the spray of glass from something shattering right over Brody's shoulder. Some Guy must have thrown whatever it was at Brody's fucking _head_. Jesus.

David curls his hands into fists, presses his knuckles into his thighs, so he won't reach out and touch any of it. It's hurting people, not— _soothing_ them—that comes natural to him, and that's the last goddamn thing Brody needs right now.

No wonder Brody was holding himself weird.

"You really ought to get an actual medical professional to look at those," David says, jerking his chin toward the ribs. They've got to be bruised right to the bone, and that's if they aren't cracked, or even broken.

"Oh, give me a fucking break," Brody says. "You think I could get through an emergency room line without anybody noticing me? It would be on Twitter in about a minute." He shakes his head, sharp. "I don't—I don't want to—" He stops, and reaches out; it's almost supposed to be a punch, David thinks, the friendly kind, except Brody slows it, softens it, until it's nothing but the backs of his knuckles coming up to rest against David's chest. "It's you," Brody says at last, after a second. "You've dealt with this shit before. You know what you're doing. You fucking waterboarded me with piss rather than let me die. You'd know if it was that bad." He pauses, and tilts his head, raises an eyebrow. "Besides, I don't remember seeing a whole lot of medical professionals giving you a second opinion about doing runs through the Killhouse with that bullet wound."

David sighs through his nose. Not like he can argue the point.

He gets it, all right. He gets it. Wanting to just curl up on your own goddamn turf and have everybody else fuck the fuck off and leave you alone—yeah, David's familiar with that one. And if there's a part of him that's a little too mindlessly pleased to think his apartment qualifies as safe ground for Brody to retreat to, well. He'll just keep that to himself.

"I don't think they're broken," Brody adds.

"The hell would you know about it," David says, and fuck, he walked right the fuck into that: Brody raises both eyebrows at him, not just the one, and turns a little, moves his elbow back out of the way, a silent _well, go on, then_.

So David swallows, and bites down on the inside of his cheek, and lets himself reach out.

It feels weird. His hands are for hefting shotguns, racking slides, the kind of uppercut that cracks teeth. He's braced for Brody to flinch from them—to realize he's got himself shut up shirtless in a bathroom with a guy who's made a living fucking people up even worse than Brody's fucked up right now, and make a break for it.

But Brody doesn't flinch. David fans out his fingers, curves a palm tentatively along the line of Brody's ribs right at the edge of the bruising, and Brody breathes out slow and doesn't move away at all.

"This might hurt a little," David warns him.

"Yeah, I figured," Brody says, real dry, and then pauses and swallows, gaze dropping and then finding its way back up after a second. "But I know you aren't doing it to make a point, man. I, um. I trust you, you know?" He reaches up, and curls his hand around David's wrist. "It's cool."

He sounds almost surprised to hear the words out of his own mouth—wets his lips, and says it again, and this time it comes out certain, satisfied.

"I trust you."

So David checks his goddamn ribs.

They're definitely bruised. At least one is probably cracked, but they're not broken, not in any danger of stabbing him in the lung or anything. He'll live. David's thorough, careful, takes his time: follows the bend of them all the way around to Brody's spine, just in case, one by one.

And then he finds his hand drifting to the next patch of bruising, down at Brody's hip. Not hand-shaped or anything; probably Brody got pushed, hit something else, a chair or the edge of a table. David runs the pads of his fingertips over it, feeling the heat of it, the swelling, the thin soft skin, and Brody sucks in a breath and still doesn't move away.

So David touches the rest of them, too. The bruises, the cuts. Something a little older, not quite a scar yet, that he doesn't like the look of. It's punishment, a little bit: everything that shouldn't have happened, everything he shouldn't have let happen to Brody, bagged and tagged and catalogued. But it's also—it's good. Reassuring. Because Brody's standing here alive in David's bathroom, letting him do it, warm and solid under David's hands.

And then David catches up with himself and realizes how unbelievably fucking weird he's being, clears his throat and makes himself lift his hands away, and grits out, "Yeah, okay, you're not going to die on my bathroom floor. Congratulations."

"I'm considerate that way," Brody agrees, like nothing about that weirded him out at all, and pulls his shirt back on; and David watches him do it and tells himself it's a relief, to have Brody covered up again.

Yeah. Sure.

They have pizza, to go with the rest of their beers.

David feels stupid again, like there's something else he should be doing, something more serious and important and meaningful than just sitting here feeding Brody pizza. But Brody looks the most comfortable he's been all day, loose through the shoulders, unwound. He even flinches visibly when he moves wrong and pinches his ribs, instead of covering it up or pretending it doesn't hurt.

It sucks that that qualifies as progress, but David's going to take what he can get.

At first, Brody eats one slice, and then stops. David remembers, with a sick little jolt, thinking he seemed thin—and maybe it is about his latest role, but maybe it isn't. Jesus.

So David carefully sets an example. He got two pizzas, because he likes having leftovers. He eats two slices, three, four. Doesn't rush it: drags it out instead, so Brody's stuck sitting there watching him eat, and acts like he hasn't noticed anything, like he's not paying the least attention to what Brody's doing. Like he doesn't have eyes for anything but the pizza.

Brody has a second slice. Bites his lip and laughs a little through his nose, and dives all at once for a third, like he's a kid getting away with something.

"Don't make yourself sick," David murmurs, when he's halfway through a fourth, David on his sixth and really starting to slow down.

And Brody grins at him, sauce on his chin, chewing a few bites with a deliberately open mouth, so thoroughly himself again that David's throat is suddenly tight and aching.

Brody starts yawning around the back half of that fourth slice, even though it's only just gotten dark outside. Then again, David thinks, he's had one hell of a day.

"For Christ's sake," David says, when Brody yawns _again_ , so wide David can hear his jaw crack. "The pizza'll keep. Go lie down."

Brody blinks at him, soft-faced, huge-eyed.

"In the other room," David adds gruffly. "I'm going to be up out here for a while. Get your ass off the couch."

Brody squints at him, starting to smile for absolutely no good reason. "Yeah? Doing what?"

"The crossword," David tells him. "Now go on."

"Oh, sure," Brody says, grinning outright now. "The crossword. Okay."

But that's as close as he gets to calling David on his bullshit, right before he yawns again; and if he's got a problem with being made to take David's bed instead of the sofa, he doesn't say so.

What he does say after a moment, grin gone, is, "Thanks, dude," in a soft serious way.

"Yeah, yeah," David says, and clears his throat, and very deliberately doesn't watch him go.

He does his best not to think about it at all.

He clears off the coffee table, bags up what's left of the pizza in Ziplocs and dumps the boxes, and carefully doesn't spare a single braincell for the idea of Brody in his bedroom—in his bed.

That's the last fucking thing Brody needs right now. He came to David for _help_ , to get away from his asshole of a boyfriend. Not to be panted over by the dumbass who didn't let him know there was somebody on his side until it was probably almost too late to matter.

David sits down at the table instead. Even gets out the crossword, for cover, just in case Brody wanders back out for a glass of water or something. And then he sits there and stares at it, pen clutched in his fingers, and tries not to do anything stupid.

He's just keeping an ear out, that's all.

Everything's quiet for the first hour or two. David decides to take that as a good sign. He realizes after a while that he's been really white-knuckling the pen, that his fingers are tingling around it, and deliberately sets it down, spreads his hands out flat against the surface of the table instead.

So. So Some Guy really has been—hurting Brody. Not always hitting him, David evaluates, cool, like he's just deciding what to put in a police report. Pushing him around, though, knocking him down or making him fall. Throwing things at him. David thinks about the phone calls, the way Brody stopped using his name out loud, stopped talking about coming to see him; and the last one, just the other day, that bone-chilling fucking cover story he'd bullshitted out of thin air, like David was one of his WeHo friends inviting him over for a pool party.

Wanted to keep track of who Brody talked to, who Brody saw, where he went. Probably didn't like how often he used to call David, how often David had called him. David grimaces, wondering exactly how often Some Guy might have seen David lighting up Brody's phone, started a fresh argument without letting Brody answer it—while David had been standing here bitching to himself about it. Fuck.

Messed with Brody's eating habits—maybe. Maybe just put him on edge. Dealing with somebody like that, with the pressure, the temper, the promise of violence hanging over your head; that could be tough enough all on its own. David remembers a dozen different missions, back in the day, where he hadn't even realized he wasn't eating right. Not until he got home safe and discovered he was fucking starving. It was hard to care about food, hard to think about it, when you were hung up on trying not to make a wrong move, knowing any second shit could get out of control.

Jesus. He sits there and lets his eyes fall shut. He wishes he _were_ filing a police report—at least that way he'd actually be doing something. But he's pretty sure Brody's not exactly going to be eager to make a public fuss about this, and David doesn't know what the hell else that leaves. He should be worrying about Brody, not himself, for fuck's sake; it's just so hard to figure out what the fuck he's good for that's actually going to be any _use_. He looked at Brody's bruises, he fed Brody pizza, he gave Brody someplace to sleep—but what the hell does that add up to, in the face of all the rest of it? It's not enough. It can't possibly be enough—

A noise. David goes still. He'd hoped Brody might be able to get some halfway decent rest tonight. But it's not like it's a surprise, if Brody's having nightmares.

At last: one fucking problem David can actually fix.

He gets up.

He tries not to move too fast, heading into the bedroom. He doesn't want to seem like a threat, like a danger; he doesn't want to end up looming over Brody, making his sleeping brain think—

Well. Think that Some Guy is there.

Except when he steps across the threshold, lets his eyes adjust so he can see, it turns out Brody isn't asleep at all.

He doesn't even look like he's been asleep. The covers are disturbed, but only around his ass, his thighs, where he's sitting on the edge of the bed. He twists to look over his shoulder at David, and in the gleam of dim light spilling in through the open door from the other room, it's easy enough to clock his wet eyes, the soft shiny-swollen skin under them.

Shit. David takes a second to wish grimly, for Brody's sake, that he'd just stayed out in the other room.

Except he couldn't have. He knows he couldn't have. Not when he thought Brody was in trouble in here, in pain—and he still is, even if it's not in the way David was assuming.

David clears his throat.

Brody's stuck like that for a second, just staring at him. And then he jerks a little, hastily turns back around, and says, too readily, too casual, "Oh, hey, dude. Sorry—did I wake you up moving around in here?"

Like hell, David thinks. As if Brody might have just—knocked something off the fucking bedside table. Jesus.

"That's really how you're going to play it?" he says aloud, mild.

Brody goes still, and doesn't look at him.

David draws a slow breath, lets it out, and tells himself to step the fuck up.

He crosses the room slowly, steadily, audible footsteps, so Brody won't be caught by surprise. Rounds the corner of the bed, and sits down a cautious armslength away; because sure, it would be satisfying to just fucking—wrap himself around Brody, head to toe, so nothing can touch him but David, but that probably isn't—

Brody must feel David's weight settling: he sucks in a wet ragged breath, and turns, immediate, unhesitating, to shove his face into David's shoulder, curling himself into the space that had been in between them. David's got to grab him, get an arm around his back, just to keep him from toppling off the edge of the damn bed.

" _God_ ," Brody says, damp, muffled by the collar of David's shirt. "This is ridiculous, man. I can't— _nothing bad is happening_ , this is the least bad anything has been in ages. I don't know why I'm being like this. This is so fucking stupid."

"Yeah," David agrees, and doesn't move away. Sets a hand at the nape of Brody's neck, instead, and squeezes just a little, and Brody's breathing hitches and then settles into something steadier.

They stay like that for maybe ten minutes. Brody softens by degrees, relaxing into David, warm and increasingly slack.

And then he sniffs, and rubs at his face with his hands, and says hoarsely, "Don't make me ask."

"Okay," David says, and when Brody eases away and scoots up to actually lie the fuck down in the bed the way he's supposed to, David doesn't leave.

* * *

He wakes up slowly.

His eyelids are heavy. There isn't any obvious appeal in trying to open them. He's warm, comfortable, and the room feels close and dim around him, sheltered. It's before dawn, he realizes distantly, that slow soft time of morning when it's like there's nobody else in the entire fucking world except you—unless maybe you're unlucky and there's a siren going off around the block, because this is still New York.

David feels his mouth slant, and sighs a little through his nose. There's only one thing stopping him from sinking right back into sleep, and that's a vague itching curiosity about why his hands are so warm—what it is that they're resting themselves against.

So, grudgingly, he cracks an eye; and Brody's lying there on his side, looking right back at him, wide awake.

Oh. Right.

David sucks in a breath, half startled and half getting ready to move, because—because shit, he hadn't meant to lie down at all. He hadn't meant to lie down, and here he is, curling in toward Brody, reaching out across the less-than-substantial space between them: his hands are lying there, stone-cold guilty-as-sin sons of bitches that they are, with half the knuckles of them pressed up against Brody's chest through his shirt, the pad of one of David's thumbs hooked in his collar and touching skin.

Except Brody's not telling him off, even now that he's awake. Brody's not moving himself, and he's not shoving David away. He's just lying there, looking at David all silent and searching, gaze flicking from one of David's eyes to the other, back again.

And then he breathes in unsteadily, and bites his lip, and whispers into the dim still air between them, "It wasn't that bad."

David shuts his eyes, strains to leash the sudden wave of cold fury prickling its way just under the surface of his skin.

"It wasn't that bad," Brody repeats, like he's trying it on for size. "I don't know why that was what did it. I blew it out of proportion. I do that a lot."

"Brody," David hears himself say, hoarse, squeezing itself out of his aching throat.

"I could handle it. I was handling it. People get upset, they get angry. You work through it. We were managing. Last night—or the night before last, I guess, but anyway. It was—he wasn't even mad, really. I could have handled it. It wasn't that big a deal. Right? We'd already fucked plenty of times. He was my boyfriend," Brody adds, as if David's in any fucking danger of forgetting. "Obviously we fucked. So it wasn't like it was a big deal," and oh. Oh, god.

David swallows hard, once and then again. He'd been ready for a couple different things he could think of off the top of his head: an argument, a bad one; hitting, throwing things, shoving Brody around. But not this—god, not this—

"I should have just let him," Brody says quietly. "Right? All I had to do was let him. It wouldn't even have hurt, if I had. It probably would have been fine." He shakes his head a little, brow furrowing; the rest of his face is blank, weirdly calm. "But it was like—I just didn't want to. I didn't want to. And once I said that, once I let it out, I couldn't stuff it back in. I couldn't make myself roll over for it anyway. But he didn't stop. He didn't _stop_ ," and that calm is losing its grip on him suddenly, his breath coming faster, his eyes wet all over again. "It wasn't that bad," he mumbles again. "It shouldn't have been a big deal—"

"Bullshit," David bites out.

It feels scraped out of him, like it takes half his throat with it, but he gets it out.

Brody stares at him, wide-eyed.

" _Bullshit_ ," David says again, louder, sharper, and Brody's face just fucking—crumples.

David hauls himself across the bed on his elbow, doesn't even have time to second-guess doing it before Brody's curling into him, David's arms closing around his shoulders to hold him there, David's hand cupping the back of his head.

He's not crying, not this time. He's not making a sound. He's just lying there, huddled into the lee of David, shaking and shaking and shaking.

"Bullshit," David murmurs into his ear, again and again, scrubbing his fingers through Brody's hair; and they stay there like that until the sun comes up.

They have to haul their asses out of bed for breakfast sooner or later.

David figures maybe that's his best opening: give Brody a few minutes in the bathroom alone to get himself together, without David standing there staring at the open wound.

But it doesn't work out that way. Brody sticks to him, hand twisted in David's undershirt, utterly unselfconscious. They squeeze right back into David's tiny shitty bathroom, and David's struck with a pointless, stupid sense memory of Brody with his shirt off, David's fingertips against his bruises, the heat of him, the stillness, the way he'd stood there and let David touch him, and fuck, jesus. David feels his face get hot, and the first thing he does is lean in over the sink and splash some cold water on it.

 _Not the time, you dumb fuck_ , he thinks hard at his reflection, like he can burn the obvious into his own brain if he glares at himself hard enough.

Brody's face is red, splotchy, for a completely different reason that incidentally makes David even more of a fucking creep; David backs off and gives him his turn, and he runs the water until it must be fucking icy, sticks his head under the faucet and gasps and swears, and then almost brains himself on the tap trying to jerk up out from under it again.

"Watch it," David snaps, hand dropping automatically to the back of Brody's head to guide him around it instead. Jesus. Never mind David's timing—David's _taste_ , for Christ's sake.

"Thanks," Brody says, breathless, dripping everywhere, and then he stops and bites his mouth, squinting up at David, and David still hasn't taken his hand away from where it settled at the nape of Brody's neck as Brody straightened up. "You know why I wanted to come here? Like, not just because I thought you'd let me or whatever."

David looks away, and takes his stupid goddamn hand back. "Because I wasn't going to tell anybody," he says evenly, carefully focusing every scrap of his attention on squeezing exactly the right amount of toothpaste onto his toothbrush.

"Well, yeah," Brody allows, after a second. "That didn't hurt. But also you're, like." He shakes his head, sending a handful of frigid drips flying. "You're bulletproof, man. You know? Nothing touches you." He stops and sighs a little, rubs his hands over his wet face and then looks at himself in David's mirror. "I want to be like that."

David blinks at his toothbrush once, twice. He turns, slow, deliberate, giving Brody a long flat look, and then narrows his eyes. "You kidding me, kid?"

"What? No. Why would I be kidding you?"

And—well, hey. It's only fair play, after yesterday, after he made Brody strip down in here. That's all, he decides, and doesn't hesitate to reach out, close one of his hands around Brody's and drag it over, and shove it up under _his_ shirt. Not even that far: just to the nasty uneven little crater that's all that's left of that stupid fucking bullet wound.

"Because you are so unbelievably fucking wrong I figured even you might have realized it," David says evenly. "I am chock full of bullet holes, you dumbass. You want to talk bulletproof? Because I'd have had a brand new one right about here—" and he drags Brody's hand to about center mass instead. "—if it hadn't been for this idiot kid who decided to step in there and eat lead for me, and he didn't even get a scratch."

"Uh, I had a huge bruise there for like three weeks," Brody says after a second, but his eyes are bright. He swallows, after, looks away and then flicks his eyes right back to David's; and he'd been pulling back a little, tentative, not sure what David was doing with his hand, but now he relaxes, leans into it, spreads his hand out over David's ribs. "I—guess I did," he adds slowly. "I guess I did do that, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did," David tells him.

"I kind of forgot about that," Brody says, almost more to himself than to David. "I don't know why I forgot about that, that was awesome." He clears his throat, and meets David's eyes again. "Anyway—yeah, okay, you caught me."

David raises his eyebrows, waiting for the punchline.

"I came here because I figured you probably needed somebody to look after you," Brody offers. "What with you being chock full of bullet holes and all."

Transparent fucking lie—but the good kind, the kind Brody would've told him before Some Guy ever entered the picture. So David only rolls his eyes a little bit when he says, "Well, gosh, kid, that's real considerate of you."

"I'm a giver," Brody agrees.

His hand's still spread out across David's chest. He looks up at David again, and there's a little flicker in it, something speculative and almost shy—

Not that it matters, David reminds himself firmly, because if— _if_ —there's a chance they're ever going to go there, it's definitely not going to be now.

Except Brody still hasn't moved his damn hand.

"Brody," David says, putting an edge of warning in it.

Which Brody promptly ignores completely, because of course he does. "Look, man," he says, "you let me get in your bed and then you came and got in it with me. I'm not saying you're putting the moves on me, you're an asshole but you're not that kind of asshole—but that's not bros, dude. Or at least it didn't feel like bros to me. Tell me I'm wrong."

It's an invitation, a challenge. It should be an easy one to take him up on. But David finds the words sticking in his throat. Because that's the last thing he should be admitting to, but—

But surely Brody's had enough of assholes jerking him around, and trying to make him believe stuff that isn't true.

The silence stretches.

"Okay, cool," Brody says. "Because, for the record, while I am definitely messed up in the head right now, I do know that there couldn't be a bigger difference between all the garbage shit that's been happening to me and getting to bang you. Like, that's not anywhere near the same category."

David closes his eyes. "I'm not in it to be your rebound, kid," he manages.

"No, yeah, I get that," Brody says instantly. "And I'm not saying I'm not going to need some time to work up to it or whatever. I'm just saying—you'd want to give it a shot, right? Later, maybe. When it's not the absolute worst timing in the history of ever."

David bites down on the inside of his cheek.

"I'll think about it," he says, grudging.

"Yeah?" Brody says, and laughs a little, and David has to look, can't pass up the chance to watch his mouth slant up like that, all pleased and self-satisfied. "Awesome."

"Jesus," David sighs under his breath.

"I mean it, you know," Brody adds. "It's been—man, it's been fucking awful," and he says it with an excruciating tone of surprise, like it's only now, thinking back over it all, that he finds himself able to make that call. "But you're, like, the opposite of awful." He stops, and bites his lip. "You'd—you'd probably be the best fucking thing that ever happened to me, dude."

David tries not to do it. He does. But hearing Brody just say shit like that is—he _has_ to crowd Brody back against the bathroom wall, just for a minute. He has to get his hand around Brody's face, his jaw. He has to press his mouth to Brody's. Once.

Once—twice. A few times—

He jerks back, because if he tried to break the kiss off slow it wouldn't work; he'd just end up diving back in again. He breathes out harsh against Brody's cheek. Shit. Fuck. He definitely should not have done that.

"Holy fuck," Brody says breathlessly. "You _are_ into me. Man, I'm going to wear you down so fast, you aren't even going to know what hit you. Just you wait."

David backs off just far enough to meet his eyes, to give him a flat steady look. But he can't help but rub his thumb along the red wet curve of Brody's mouth, too. "You think so, huh?" he murmurs. "I don't know, kid, I'm pretty sure I can take whatever you can dish out."

"Oh, it is _on_ , dude," Brody promises, and then flashes that fucking grin like sunshine. "So, what are you making me for breakfast?"

"Cold pizza," David tells him, deadpan, just to listen to him laugh.


End file.
